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Mistakes

In one of the first scenes of the movie you see Riggs in his trailer. He walks out of bed smoking a cigarette and taking a beer. When he takes his first drink of the beer some fluid is spilled. If you look at it, it is not beer. It's probably water, but definitely not beer. See more...

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Mel Gibson references the Three Stooges several times in the film. In real life, Gibson is a big Stooges fan, and in 2000, he produced the biographical TV movie "The Three Stooges." See more...

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Lethal Weapon (1987) - 22 corrections

Directed by Richard Donner, starring Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mel Gibson, Mitch Ryan, Tom Atkins (add more)

Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Mr. Jeremy's assault rifle at the end of the movie has a silencer at the end, but it is just as loud, if not louder, than Riggs's submachine gun. [Firstly, Gary Busey's character is called Mr Joshua and secondly his gun doesn't have a sound suppressor, it's called a flash supressor: http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Lethal_WeaponColt_XM177_Commando.]
Edit Corrected by TheHeartbreakKid15
In the Christmas tree lot scene, an ambusher appears behind Riggs and shoots at the drug dealer on the left wearing a blue jacket. He only gets shot once, yet as he falls backward there are several bullet holes in his shirt. [The dealer gets shot with a shotgun which sprays pellets not just a single bullet.]
Edit Corrected by razoprill
When Riggs and Murtaugh arrive at Dixie's house, the boys playing on the street immediately identify them as police officers. The clothes Riggs and Murtaugh are wearing and the car their driving, give no indication that they are police officers. So how could the boys know this? [Several possible explanations. Perhaps the boys have seen Riggs and Murtaugh specifically before, for instance. It's also possible these young children, having lived in what is obviously not exactly the best sort of neighborhood, are very street wise and can recognize the pair as police by their behavior or some other indicator.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius Time
After having visited Murtaugh's house and family for the first time, Riggs tells him outside a story from Vietnam, how he "shot a man from 1000 yards in the windy weather" and adds: "That's the only thing I ever been good at." Talk about understatement. Of course he's nothing else but martial arts expert, ladykiller, wisecracking innocent people's life saviour and bad boys' biggest nightmare who can make it through almost impossible situations. [Not really trivia. Riggs thinks lowly of himself. thinking that he is only good at one thing, killing no less, upholds his belief.]
Edit Corrected by MasterOfAll
When the little boy points at Riggs' tattoo he could hardly see it as Riggs' sleeve was down. Only when it's pulled up does the tattoo become visible. [The tattoo is visible when Riggs and Murtaugh are walking up to the children. His sleeve comes down during the scene, but the boy would have seen the tattoo earlier and remembered it being the same.]
Edit Time
A green car is parked at the side of Dixie's house before the explosion. Between shots it gets replaced by a brown car surrounded by people, then it changes back to the green car and drives off, away from the road. [Not so. There is a side street along the side of Dixie's home. On the far side of that street, a brown car has its hood and trunk open with people near it. On the closer side of that same side street, a blue 1960s Impala convertible is parked facing away from camera, partially obscured by Dixie's home. There is one very quick shot where you can see both cars are there, but the rest of the angles show one while hiding the other. When the house explodes, the blue car takes off- perhaps driven by the bomber, or simply a bystander getting out of the way. No error.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
When Mel Gibson is talking about the special bullet, kept as the suicide special, he describes it as a hollow point - to do the job right. When he shows the bullet you can see it is a full metal jacket. [When he mentions the hollow-point, he's quite maniacly threatening to kill himself. Much later, he hands a bullet to Murtagh's daughter and tells her to give it to Murtagh. He may or may not have ever had a hollow-point, having exaggerated in the heat of the argument (the old "cry for help"). The bullet we see later may not be the bullet he originally described, but is just a symbolic one to send the message that he isn't suicidal anymore. Regardless, he doesn't specifically say the bullet we see is a hollow-point.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
The car that Mr Joshua shoots Riggs from and the car that Mr Joshua later steals from the highway are the same car. [Same model and color, but the plates are never readable, and as they are fairly new at the time of the film, it's not unlikely to see more than one. Absent an obvious, unique identifier, this isn't really a solid mistake.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
The house that was bombed was also the family home seen in "The Partridge Family". [Actually, not even a close resemblance. Dixie's house is practically a shack while the Partridge Family home was enormous. Do a Google image search to see the huge differences.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
When Riggs runs after Mr. Joshua, who is trying to escape in the stolen car, Murtaugh shouts after him that Mr. Joshua is heading for the freeway. How on earth does he know that, especially since Joshua was going into some odd direction which allowed Riggs to shortcut him on foot and get ahead of him? [Murtagh, like Joshua, knows these streets, and Joshua's direction suggests he's heading for the freeway. Murtagh also shouts a shortcut to Riggs, which is what allows Riggs to catch up to Joshua.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
Another mistake says: "In the scene where the girl jumps to her death from the balcony, it shows her hitting the car towards the right halfway onto the windshield. Then in the next shot, it shows her laying right in the middle of the roof of the car." Also, the car in the first shot is not a real one but part of a painted "air-cushion" which stuntmen jump on from high places in order to land in safety. You can see it on the DVD by advancing the scene frame by frame until, in the last frame, the double touches the air-cushion and wrinkles it. [Mistakes found via slo-motion are not valid.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa Time
When Murtaugh hears that the suicidal Jumper's parents are Michael and Clair Hunsaker, he whispers "Claire!" even though he only knows Michael Hansaker, who, as we learn in the beginning from the conversation he had with his wife, saved Murtaugh's life in Vietnam. [Murtaugh and Hunsacker have kept in touch since the war. Naturally Murtaugh would know Hunsacker's wife's name.]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
After Dixie's house has been blown up Murtaugh starts patting Riggs' back, telling him that his coat is on fire, which it is not. [If you look closely, Riggs' jacket is not fully in flames, but is smoldering because some embers fell on it. Murtaugh says "You're on fire" as a euphamism.]
Edit Corrected by wizard_of_gore Time
The target that Murtaugh shoots through the "nose" already has the hole in place when he hangs it up. (It's not the design of the target, because the one that he takes down a few seconds before has no hole in that spot.) [It IS the design of the target and this is visible at three points. 1. In the beginning of the movie when Murtaugh spends some time by himself by the gun range (this is in the directors cut version before he teams up with Riggs). 2. The target Murtaugh takes down in the scene in question actually has this mark but one must look really carefully to see it. 3. When Riggs sends the target out again to shot the smile face there are two marks in the head. One bullet hole and one mark.]
Edit Time
On the video,when Riggs does the last target practice, he only shoots 7 shots, but when the target comes up there are two shots for the eyes, one for the nose, and five for the mouth, for a total of eight. [The hole for the nose was actually made by Murtaugh, then Riggs uses the same target and puts the 2 eyes and 5 mouth holes around Murtaughs initial shot thus making 8 holes.]
Edit
When Riggs and Murtaugh leave the bank, Riggs stops for a hot dog. The next time you see him, he is getting into the car and the hot dog is almost not eaten at all. Before that, it is almost gone. [In the car, Riggs is holding the hotdog in his other hand and we see the other, unbitten end. Besides, there's no cut that would have allowed any tampering.]
Edit Corrected by Nancy<>Felix
When the guy from the bank is explaining the whole plot of the movie to Danny Glover just before Gary Busey shoots him from the helicopter, If you look out the window Mel Gibson is outside smoking looking up at them. Every time it cuts to a shot showing him he is standing in a different place or has disappeared altogether. [Mel Gibson's character is wandering around outside. Coupled with the changing camera angles inside the office, it is no wonder that he can't be seen in some of them.]
Edit
When Mel Gibson is crying over his wife's picture, he pulls the magazine out of his pistol, ejects the round that is in it and pulls out the hollow point. He pulls back the slide on the Beretta 9mm and locks it open. He places the bullet in the breech and closes the slide. When he points the gun at himself, the hammer is not cocked to fire, although the slide was pulled back, which would have pushed the hammer down to be fired. [The pistol Riggs uses is the Beretta 92F. When the safety is on and the slide is pulled back and then closed, the hammer SAFELY falls. The shooter can at that time click off the safety, and then fire the gun double action. Or, then the shooter can click off the safety, pull back the hammer and fire the gun single action.]
Edit
Just an observation. When Mr. Joshua calls the police to verify Riggs has been killed, he says he is from KCOP news, or K-"COP". Interesting choice of letters. [KCOP are not letters made up by Mr. Joshua, it is television station that exists in the movie. In the scene where Riggs brings the suicidal jumper down off of the ledge, you can see a KCOP van by the crowd. But yes, it is an interesting choice of letters anyhow.]
Edit
When Mr. Joshua gives Riggs one final chance to tell what he knows, before being tortured by Endo, he says something to the effect of, "Endo here has forgotten more about torture than you or I will ever know." Okay...so, does he remember anything then? I get that at one point he knew more than they, but how much of that has he forgotten? Maybe he now knows less. [Stop being overly analytical here. Mr Joshua said that because he is hyperbolizing. Endo knows so much about dispensing pain that he is just saying that to make Riggs nervous.]
Edit

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